Hot, muggy, rain, cloud, sun.
Long blog today. Interesting place here....
The city of Recife, Brazil is at the very end of the bump on the east coast of South America. Most people have never heard of it. It is in reality a very big, ugly city that may have been quite attractive in the 1800s before it started to decay and turn into what we saw today: past splendour, smelly streets, people sleeping off the Saturday night drugs and parties. Streets where the lovely cobblestone has been dug up and never fitted again properly, all amongst a sense of neglect.
This is interspersed by some lovely wonderfully maintained and colourful buildings, usually government. There is evidence of some civic pride, with faded buildings, usually in a series or row, like some people tried to spruce the area up, long ago.
Our day started with us four taking the shuttle to a very large converted jail that is now a market with each cell now a shop. Three stories high with the original stairs as well as an elevator. When we arrived, on a Sunday, it was not open, nor was anything it appeared. Our hopes dropped.
We walked outside with maps in hand to stroll the streets. We were instructed by a tourist director to go in the direction we wanted was Forbidden. Hmmmmm. Next thing a tiny gentleman introduced himself as Tony and said he would guide us. Hmmmmm. After some discussion we rather reluctantly engaged him for $5.00 each for an hour walk.
First thing Tony did was tell us to take our watches off, put away our cameras and follow him. Hmmmmmm. After a five minute walk he pointed out a statue in a neglected tiny square absent of people except for some men squatting at the curb side. He said "This is the city centre". Hmmmmmm.
All we saw was endless building fronts with steel shutters, very few cars, some police, some people sleeping in doorways. By now we knew this was a very poor and bad place to be. That was confirmed by my seeing two dead rats in the gutter, blocks apart; the police with two suspects with arms over their heads and finally a woman whipping down her drawers and mooning the police! No more Hmmmmms, we knew what we had.
Tony escorted us through a massive street market that, you guessed it, was not open, except for a very few stalls. The essence of fish, with one stall open, chopping up some pathetic looking fish for a few women shoppers.
Eventually Tony took us on a Church Crawl! He guided us to and through several churches including one Basilica. All were having services, but he either knew the people in charge or somehow he convinced them to allow us in to see and photograph whatever we wanted.
We were all getting a bit tired and the hour was long past but he took us past some other well kept government buildings and ended up in the Governor's Residence where they we having an open house for the enlightened and more elitist side of the population with Sunday music.
The building was magnificent and spotless. Eventually he arranged a 'Garden Tour' for us, escorted by a staff member, a young lad. The Princess Palace as it is called has a lovely view at the front and at the back overlooks an nice Palm Garden and what looks like a river but in fact is the ocean because we were on a small island. The ocean looks fine but has a putrid smell and the shoreline is a cesspool of rotting litter swishing at the shore. I almost retched.
Two hours later we paid Tony off at the spot he picked us up and browsed the jail from top to bottom, our purchases there was four ice cream cones and a shirt for Doug. Shorty thereafter we four were back on the ship, washed up and in the Lido for lunch, washed down by a very cold beer, in a very clean mug! Then most rested and thanked the dear Lord for where we live.
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One sad comment today: When we left the Governor's Palace today the young Lad asked where we were from, Jim or I said 'Canada and the USA', the young lad said "I am not a friend of the USA" and then said "Canada has cool politics"
It is absolutely amazing how some 20 year old young man in this god forsaken city is informed about what is happening a zillion miles away in a different hemisphere. Trump I can understand, but Trudeau?
It is a bit frightening to even think of the possibly the whole damn world could be mad at Trump and interpret that to mean the USA.
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Sorry to ruin your day. Our day started out lumpy but ended up OK. I don't think that I will pencil in Recife as a place to come back to.
Mind you folks, we only saw about 10,000 steps of this place...and we all have colds still!
I am sure there will be other folks who had a wonderful time today and visited beautiful places, but not where we went today. We visited Recife before but took a tour to Olinda, some miles away, a quaint little old time colourful place, nicer than our area today.
Tomorrow is a sea day, then we arrive in Fortaleza where we four are getting out of the big city and going on a Dune Buggy ride!!!
Jim getting some fun at the start of the day in the terminal. I have never seen such a masculine looking woman in my life. Hmmmmm.
Beautiful subject matter, lousy place to be. Tony didn't want Jim and I to be here.
Faded glory.
Too much Samba last night perhaps. Sort of puts a damper on the idea about having a local lunch doesn't it?
Pretty as a post card, just hold your nose.
Neat from afar.
We two in the old jail, now a quaintsy market.
G'Day. You both really look the part of people wanting to escape. I assume it was the smell you mentioned!! Cheers, Keith.
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